Cars Illustrated Magazine – State of the Union Address 2016

As 2016 ends and a new year of STREET RACE LIFE begins, Cars Illustrated magazine is excited to see what 2017 holds. It’s been a wild year, and street racing has never been more mainstream or more cool. There is more heads-up grudge racing than ever. The concept of “no prep drag racing” has taken hold. New cars with more power and smaller tires are coming out every day. And, the big three are building the quickest cars in the history of Detroit. Hell, we’ve even got a prime time television show dedicated to our favorite underground sport.

As for us, we are pretty stoked with what we’ve been able to do with this ‘80s era title – and it’s all thanks to you, our dedicated readers and social media fans who just stop by for a quick peek. In just under two short years, we’ve come from being resurrected from the grave to being a part of what’s making drag racing great again. We’ve got a lot of work to do, and we really appreciate the support of our partners – companies and individuals who have been around for decades. Thanks guys!

We caught the industry by surprise last year with a visit to SEMA’s MPMC event, where high performance manufacturers meet with editorial types (Pubisher – we are being real generous with that description of our staff). As we had hoped, the old guard remembers and respects what Cars Illustrated means to this industry, and they are exited to see just how far we can go. You see, hands-on hardcore tech still “turns the pages”.

Fans of the original print magazine and our new digital crowd have given us a chance to showcase what we had been bottling up. It’s a pretty simple formula – build bad ass cars on a real guy’s budget and put them to the test. This gives the industry a new, fresh place to showcase their products while you learn the inside track to going fast. Again, thanks to the supporters of Cars Illustrated throughout both camps – we couldn’t have done it without you!

A highlight of 2016 was an opportunity to relive one of the greatest challenges of all time – go 12.99 for $1299. Just a few months in and the challenge defeated us once again CLICK HERE for the final installment. Several teams from the East to the West coast also started the 12.99 Challenge but have yet to their final results. But as of this writing, no one has yet to complete the fabled “12.99 Challenge”. For 2017, we are hoping to try the 12.99 Challenge again with the current staff, and rest assured, what we learned from our first attempt will surely help in the next chapter.

We branched out into several outlets this year, including Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and more attempting to bring the “jingly keys” consumer of our brand into the fold. Of course, we had racers from across the country in that mix, not just those in at the newsstands.

As Cars Illustrated continues to grow, hardcore racers have taken notice once again, and we’ll need to adjust our content. The world of street racing and hardcore straight line performance is evolving rapidly every day. Detroit is hot. The race promoters are holding nothing back. And, the economy is allowing for big builds and wild times. We are working every day to have Cars Illustrated return to the status of the great powerhouse it was in the 80’s. This is a good thing because in the end it’s just good fun to go to the track and work even harder for the kill.

So work hard over the rest of the winter, on your cars in general, and in the engine room. We have a lot of fun ahead of us in 2017, including seeing if the CI mules will hold together this year.

Thanks to all of you for your dedication this year. We look forward to another great year of racing and building even hotter cars to hit the track and the street in 2017.